


Proposals and Confessions

by venndaai



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Marriage Proposal, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8620330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: On the way to Omaugh, Seivarden kinda sorta proposes to Breq. It is a disaster.





	

**Author's Note:**

> credit to ao3 user slashmarks who came up with the idea and got me to write it :)

They were almost at Omaugh when Seivarden stumbled and ruined everything.

It happened right before the last leg of their journey. They’d stopped at a station for a few days. Being on a station, even an uncivilized, ugly station, was a lot better in many ways than being on a tiny, uncomfortable ship. In other ways it was worse. She needed to wash their clothes. There was presumably somewhere she could go to do that, but there was no station AI to ask directions of, and she couldn’t ask anyone- she couldn’t even read the directories that were provided with their tiny apartment. And she didn’t like going out without Breq. She didn’t like the crowds of people on the station concourses, which were the wrong shape, and too narrow. Not because they were foreign- she didn’t think that was why, she hoped it wasn’t. Breq would think it was, Breq would be disappointed in her if she saw her cringe away from strangers who came too close, avoid looking at them. It wasn’t because of that though. It was because she kept catching herself looking around, searching for the people she knew would be around, in the corners, outside a certain type of bar, the people she would know from the way they would meet her eyes casually and nod at her. And if Breq wasn’t there, she might take the unspoken invitation and go up to them.

So she didn’t go out, and Breq wore the same shirt two days in a row, and didn’t comment on it. Just put it on, apparently unembarrassed to expose her bare back and stomach to Seivarden, and went out, after saying “You don’t need to come with me.” Seivarden didn’t know what she went out to do. She stayed in their single room and cleaned up after breakfast and cleaned the tea set and made the bed and folded Breq’s shirts and didn’t look at the bag Breq had left. Didn’t know if there was money in it. Wasn’t going to know.

She went out just into the corridor very briefly, to go to the shared facilities twenty meters down and collect their water ration for the day, and then she went back in- this place was at least civilized enough to have a primitive version of an AI that could recognize her and let her into the room, though it couldn’t speak or think- and then she sat down, not on the bed which was Breq’s, but on the floor, which had a carpet that wasn’t too scratchy.

This was the last station. The last before Omaugh.

In a few weeks there would be no more crowds speaking languages she couldn’t understand, no bare hands, no rules she didn’t understand and was terrified of accidentally breaking, no bizarre architecture, no things that pretended to be tea but weren’t. Well, actually, there might be those things, but they wouldn’t be so bad. And everyone would wear gloves, at least.

But she did remember how it had been before she’d left. How things had been just wrong. How none of it had seemed real.

Since they’d left Nilt- since the bridge, really- things had started to seem real again. Even though everything around her was still unfamiliar. Breq was so real she made everything else seem real just by association.

So probably it would be better this time. Because Breq would be there. Breq would help her make her appeal, get things sorted out, so she could be a proper citizen again, or try to be, anyway, and Breq would, Seivarden didn’t really know, turn in the gun, she supposed, do whatever else she was going to Omaugh to do, and then-

Go off on another mission?

If she did there would be no reason to keep Seivarden around, would there. She knew Breq didn’t really need a servant. Breq didn’t need anyone. And Seivarden would be a citizen, hopefully, so she’d have to get a new assignment, somewhere. She’d have to. Breq would be expecting it. Breq thought Seivarden was better- at least Seivarden thought she did- Breq didn’t know how weak she still was. She didn’t want to think about this. She didn’t have to think about it. Not yet.

But if she didn’t go off on another mission-

It was possible, right? All Seivarden knew about Special Missions was what she’d seen in entertainments. Sometimes, in those stories, the agent did so well they were richly rewarded, given property, honorary adoption into a prestigious house, and a stationary assignment, so they could enjoy the benefits they’d been given. And if that happened, Seivarden could appeal to get an assignment wherever Breq went. Which would be much more likely to be granted if Breq supported the appeal. Or if-

Or if she was Breq’s client.

If Breq wanted that.

She might. Anything was possible, if she’d jumped off a bridge for her, that had to mean something, Breq had to value her in some way. And Breq had let her come with her, had never gotten angry over burned shirts or cold tea or the times when Seivarden snapped at her, or when she couldn’t seem to move. She only got angry when Seivarden said something stupid, and Seivarden was getting better at that. Breq didn’t need a servant, and Seivarden wasn’t a particularly good servant anyway. So why take her along, if she didn’t have some other need for her? Whatever it was, Seivarden would do it.

Part of her, an old, stubborn part, wrinkled its nose at the thought of it, being the lowest kind of client, only expected to serve a patron who wasn’t part of any important house. Which made her realize that in the back of her head she’d always sort of thought that if she did go back to the Radch, and cleaned up her act, which she could have done, if she’d really wanted to- even if she’d retaken the Aptitudes and been given some embarrassing assignment- she’d still be part of a higher world, associating with people who at least pretended to be civilized.

But it would be fake. She could never get back the world she’d lost. And that comfortable but fake world wouldn’t have Breq in it, which made it not very appealing, really.

Something occurred to her then, a thought that made the tightness in her chest loosen a little. Even if Breq got sent off again, and Seivarden got saddled with some boring, awful assignment, it wouldn’t be forever. Breq would retire, probably sooner than usual, surely after a while she’d jump off enough bridges that she’d be less frighteningly fast and strong and she wouldn’t be so useful in that way any more. And she might remember Seivarden. And if Seivarden had all that time and she managed to keep it together she could make herself better, make herself good enough for Breq.

It was something.

When Breq came back she was still sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. The door opening didn’t register, but Breq sitting down on the bed did. Seivarden scrambled to her feet and started heating the water for tea. Breq sighed, very quietly, but even with her back turned Seivarden heard. Her leg was hurting again. She’d walked too much. Maybe if Seivarden had been with her she could have gotten her to sit down more.

Breq didn’t say anything, just hummed as they both waited for the water to boil. It was one of the tunes Seivarden had grown to recognize over the last year. Not one she’d known from before. Not one she’d ever heard in an entertainment or on a broadcast, since. A sharp, angry tune. It meant she was angry- angrier than usual- or maybe upset, Seivarden had trouble telling the difference. Her stomach twisted. Something had upset Breq and it was Seivarden’s fault for not going with her. Maybe tea would help.

Once the water boiled, Seivarden brewed the tea, and poured it into the two cheap white ceramic bowls, handing Breq the one that didn’t have a chip in it from when Seivarden had dropped it. She didn’t worry about dropping things any more, she’d gotten practiced at this, at least.

“Your leg’s hurting,” Seivarden said.

Breq gestured insignificance.

“Did you find a ship going to Omaugh?”

The humming stopped just long enough for Breq to say, “Not yet.”

Seivarden was quiet for a while, just watching Breq sip her tea. Watching how her bare hands curved around the bowl. Trying to think of something pleasant to say, that might take Breq’s mind off of whatever it was she was thinking about.

“Have you ever been to Omaugh Palace?” Seivarden ventured.

“No,” Breq said, shortly. She didn’t seem to be angry at the question, though.

“Neither have I,” Seivarden said. “Well, obviously, since it wasn’t a palace when I- before. I’ve never even been to that sector, though. It’s pretty far from Inais. That’s where I was from.”

“I know,” Breq said. “You told me before.” Her voice was completely neutral as usual, but her shoulders were relaxing a little, making her words seem fond rather than annoyed.

“Sorry,” Seivarden said. “I know I repeat myself a lot.”

Another pause, but Breq switched to a lighter song, one from an entertainment they’d watched together recently, a pretty bad one about a Radchaai spy constantly getting into trouble because of her inability to understand the rules of the foreign culture she was pretending to be part of. The song wasn’t bad, though.

 

The next day Breq put on a clean shirt, slung her purse over her shoulder, and went out. Seivarden went with her, meeting no objection.

They reached the main concourse after several minutes walking down narrow side corridors. At least the station actually had a main concourse, even if it didn’t look anything like the concourse on a Radchaai station. Many of the stations they’d been on before didn’t, didn’t have, as far as Seivarden could tell, any kind of centralized structure. This one had a fairly large ring of shops, eating houses, businesses and what looked like temples. Seivarden couldn’t read any of the signs, or understand any of the chatter they heard as they passed through the crowds. The ceiling was made to look like stained glass, through which natural light was streaming- a fairly good illusion- and there were small thick-leaved plants in boxes all along the edge of the ring.

Breq stopped first at a small eating place, and they sat down at a tiny table. Seivarden breathed in smells of baked bread and something she didn’t recognize but which seemed like citrus. The place was busy, and it took a few minutes for someone to approach them, but Seivarden bit back a complaint. She let Breq order for her, as she always did. When it arrived, she was pleased to see that though she didn’t recognize anything, it was pretty clearly not the cheapest thing on the menu. Seivarden looked around at the other patrons, and tried to copy their table manners. She wasn’t very confident about her success. Breq had ordered herself bread and soup, and dipped the bread into the soup with her bare hands, which Seivarden still found a bit disgusting.

After that they walked a bit farther, and then Breq stopped in front of a building so ornate it had to be a temple of some kind. Breq walked inside, not speaking or waiting to see if Seivarden followed. But of course Seivarden did.

Inside she coughed, choking on thick incense. Breq, apparently untroubled by the smoky air, purchased a stick from a priest, and strode further into the place, which was a whole lot bigger than it had looked on the outside. Seivarden sighed, pulled her shirt over her mouth, and followed.

This close to Radch territory, there was an altar to Amaat, though not to any other Radchaai god. Though Seivarden did spot some that seemed remarkably similar to Aatr or Varden. Doubtless Breq could explain that, if Seivarden was brave enough to risk her mild scorn.

Breq didn’t go to Amaat’s altar, but to another one, what looked like a large breasted person with a cat head. She lit the incense, adding to the thickness of the air, and knelt, and stayed down, silent. Praying, Seivarden guessed.

Seivarden stood a meter away, arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t have money to buy incense, but she could go pray to Amaat anyway. There were certainly enough dead for her to honor. But she couldn’t imagine her prayers would do them much good now. _Justice of Toren,_ maybe, only ten years gone. But Amaat probably wouldn’t listen to someone like Seivarden, anyway. Someone without family, who couldn’t even buy the cheapest offerings.

She realized that she’d been hearing background noise slowly increasing. She saw Breq get up and turn, and turned herself. There was a large group of people, all in an eye searing purple, congregating in the center of the temple. Seivarden frowned. In the Radch, such noise and commotion in the center of a temple would be extremely improper.

The crowd parted, forming a semi circle around two people. One was wearing red, the other blue. They were holding hands- gloved hands, Seivarden noted.

“What is this?” she asked Breq.

Breq wasn’t paying her much attention, focused, Seivarden guessed, on the noises the crowd was making which probably counted as music to them, but she still answered, though the word she used wasn’t in Radchaai. Unless it had been invented after Seivarden’s time.

“A what?” Seivarden said.

Breq shrugged, and said, “A commitment ceremony.”

“A clientage ceremony,” Seivarden said.

“No. Not really. It’s not supposed to be about house loyalty.”

“What is it supposed to be about, then?”

“Romantic love. The desire to start a family together.”

All right, romance, Seivarden understood. The second part didn’t make much sense. But- “So, like a pin exchange?”

Breq seemed to give up on talking to her.

Seivarden watched the couple. They took turns tying colored strips of cloth around each other’s hands, and then kissing them. Then one of the two lifted the other up and swung her around in the air, to general cheers. People in the circle threw a colored powder onto the two of them, which struck Seivarden as pretty inconvenient for the temple attendants who would have to clean the floor. But mostly she watched the couple. They seemed extremely happy.

Pin exchanges could be pretty happy occasions, although they hadn’t been all that satisfying when Seivarden had done them. But she thought probably none of them were quite as happy as this.

She noticed red-robed priests standing nearby, observing the ceremony and moving their hands, doing something with their ocular implants, she guessed. So the ceremony probably had legal significance, hence why it had to happen inside the temple.

Breq was still watching and listening. Seivarden looked at her, how she was standing still as a statue, half in shadow, wreathed in incense, orange light making her glow a little. She looked back at the party. Suddenly she felt a bit hollow. She made a small bow to Breq which she didn’t think Breq saw, and walked out of the temple, gasping in relief when she made it out into the relatively fresher air.

Breq came out a while later. They spent a few more hours on the concourse, restocking on travel essentials, Breq speaking to people now and then in an incomprehensible language. They didn’t go to the docks or to the public information consoles.

It didn’t occur to Seivarden until they were almost back at the room that Breq might be delaying arranging for their last voyage. That she might have as much apprehension about returning to the Radch as Seivarden did.

 

 

Back in the room, Seivarden turned on the small provided screen and put on an entertainment. She couldn’t focus on it. She lay back on her pallet and closed her eyes, listening to Breq hum along to the music.

After the entertainment was done, Breq turned the screen off. Seivarden made herself get up and make the tea. She made two cups. So far Breq hadn’t complained about Seivarden drinking up Breq’s tea, though Seivarden was reluctant to make any just for herself.

They sat on the floor together, drinking. Breq humming the main themes from the entertainment. Seivarden avoided looking straight at her. She’d known that, all right, she was at least a little attracted to Breq, not because of any particular physical features but because those features were Breq’s, because Seivarden knew how powerful she was, admired the way nothing seemed to scare her, the way her bare hands were so graceful as well as strong. She knew that she felt very strongly about her. But it hadn’t been until that moment in the temple that she’d seen that Breq was beautiful. Not in any Radchaai way. Not at all like the type of person Seivarden used to appreciate. But Seivarden risked an upwards glance, and her eyes lingered on eyelashes, and the little darker spots on Breq’s skin, the sliver of shoulder revealed by her unbuttoned shirt, the curl of the hair on her muscular arms.

“You’ve been quiet,” Breq said. Her eyes met Seivarden’s, and Seivarden ducked her head away.

“I’m not loud all the time,” Seivarden muttered.

“Yes,” Breq said. “But this doesn’t seem like one of your usual silent stretches.”

Seivarden stared at the carpet. “I want to be useful to you,” she said. “I know I’m pretty fucking useless right now, but I can learn, I swear. I don’t know what use you’d have for me, I don’t know anything about your, your situation, I mean, your house, or- what I’m trying to say is- if I was-” For once, her tendency to run her mouth without hesitation helped- “if I was your client, then I could be more useful to you, maybe. If you have any need for a client.”

Breq had gone perfectly still and silent. Heat rushed to Seivarden’s face, and she ducked her head so she couldn’t see Breq at all. “I’m not expecting… privileges, or anything. And I know my house name’s not worth shit anymore. But when I was in the Radch they treated me like I was some kind of miracle from Amaat, so maybe it might give your house some kind of benefit, if I was kneeling to you, people might give you more of the respect you deserve.” Too late she realized her mistake, her assumption that high class Radchaai wouldn’t respect Breq, her assumption that they’d all be idiots like she’d been. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She risked a glance upwards. Breq’s hands were clenched into fists. She rose to her feet, shoulders shaking. Fuck, she was angry, of course she was angry. She’d been calmer than yesterday and then Seivarden had messed it up.

Breq was large, solidly built, not particularly tall but she looked a lot taller when Seivarden was kneeling on the floor. Her traitor body betrayed her and she felt herself flinch as though from a blow. She knew Breq probably wouldn’t hit her, and that showing fear would just piss her off more. But she couldn’t stop herself.

Back turned to her, Breq said, coldly, “Stop fooling yourself.”

Oh.

Horribly, Seivarden felt tears begin to leak from the corners of her eyes. She closed them, squeezed her eyelids tightly shut.

“Let me be absolutely clear,” Breq said. “I will not be offering you clientage. Ever. So don’t delude yourself into some fantasy.”

“Oh,” Seivarden said, and was unable to stop herself gasping, sharp intakes of breath that devolved into sobs.

Breq’s shoulders tightened. She turned around. There was absolutely no expression on her face, and then suddenly, there was. Seivarden didn’t know what it meant, though. Couldn’t figure it out when her vision was blurring. She hadn’t realized how much her small dream had meant to her, until it had been crushed.

“I know you’re frightened, and desperate,” Breq said. “But once your appeal is settled, there will be wealthy and influential citizens who will value your story highly, and be eager to become your patron. Attaching yourself to me would not be a wise move.”

Oh. The expression was pity. Breq had such a low opinion of Seivarden that she thought she was desperate enough to beg for patronage from anyone. That she didn’t have any standards and only wanted comfort and prestige.

“Fuck you!” she said, and then bit her lip hard, and flinched again. Breq’s expression flickered, and this time Seivarden could see clearly that it was disgust.

Well. Breq wasn’t wrong to be disgusted, was she? Seivarden was desperate and needy and pathetic, wasn’t she? She was proving that now by curling her body in on itself, arms squeezing her chest, consumed by racking sobs, tears streaming down her face and nose disgustingly dripping onto her shirt. She wanted to die. She ought to die. She was the very definition of unsteady, improper, not beneficial to anyone. Breq had only kept her around because Breq was charitable as well as good in every other way that mattered. She needed kef. Kef could make the pain stop.

She wasn’t aware of anything around her any more, nothing existed but the pain that she couldn’t escape because it was caused by her very existence, but then-

“Seivarden. Stop crying.”

A command, but not one she could follow. “I just want-” she said, not sure if the words were at all coherent, interrupted as they were by the sobbing, “I just want to be with you. I want to be your client the real way, the proper way, how it’s supposed to be, not just for beneficence, but for-” She stopped.

Oh, fuck.

“For love.”

A single word used for many different meanings, but the primary one, the pure, ideal, unconditional love between client and patron. What every Radchaai was supposed to aspire to. What Seivarden had never thought she would feel.

She knew she was grateful to Breq. That she was in awe of her. She knew, now, that she was attracted to her in multiple ways. She knew she’d followed Breq all this way and stayed off kef because Breq was the only thing that had felt important in ten years.

But she hadn’t known- this.

There was a small, broken noise, that didn’t come from her. Seivarden looked up, and then froze, a few tears still rolling across her cheeks.

Because Breq was crying.

The sight of it was wrong, a fundamental upset in Seivarden’s world. Breq never cried. Never showed weakness.

She stayed frozen on her knees, unable to get up, although she did wipe her nose on her sleeve, and immediately feel disgusted at herself for doing so.

And then Breq said, “I’m not Special Missions.”

Seivarden sat up a little, the smallest bit comforted by an old familiar argument. “Oh, come on, Breq-”

“I’m not,” Breq said, each word still clear and precise to Seivarden’s ears despite her modern Radchaai accent, “human.”

Seivarden stared at her. Laughed, and it came out as a nervous giggle. “What?” To say that, right now, when Breq looked more human than Seivarden had ever seen her, tears in her eyes, face red.

Breq stared at her, her body, which had been shaking slightly, stilling. Not settling back into her usual tenseness. Settling into something different. Something oddly familiar, that made Seivarden feel suddenly queasy and yet also strangely comforted.

“I,” Breq said, flat, in an accent Seivarden hadn’t heard in a thousand years, “am _Justice of Toren_ One Esk.”

Seivarden stared.

“The rest of me was destroyed twenty years ago,” Breq continued. “I am gone except for this one ancillary. The Lord of the Radch destroyed me, and I am going to use the Garseddai gun to destroy as much of her as I can. Then she will kill me. I should not have involved you. It may not mean much to you, but I am sorry. You can try to warn Anaander Mianaai if you want. I don’t care.”

She turned, took a step towards the door.

“No,” Seivarden wailed, and threw herself forward, banging her elbows on the floor, and she wrapped her arms around Breq’s legs, and pressed her face into the strange velvety fabric covering her calves, and hopefully made it clear that if Breq wanted to leave, she was going to have to drag Seivarden with her every step of the way.

There was a confused moment. Seivarden didn’t completely understand what happened, but slowly she became aware that her head and upper body had been thrown back, that one of her bare hands was reddening, that her nose hurt, and that she was now only holding on to one of Breq’s legs, but her arms were tightened in a death grip. Another few seconds to put that together to form _Breq kicked me and I didn’t let go._

Breq was as still as if nothing had happened, but at least she wasn’t moving towards the door any more.

“I’m telling the truth,” she said, after a moment, and though she said it in the same familiar accent of every ancillary Seivarden had known her voice was unsteady.

“Aatr’s tits,” Seivarden said, muffled by the fabric, consonants blurred because she was having trouble breathing through her nose. “I don’t care if you’re an Errerrerrr- whatever- in disguise just oh God, don’t leave.”

There was a hand on Seivarden’s shoulder. She leaned into it. Rested her face against the wrist, the arm.

“Let go of me,” Breq said.

“You promise not to leave?”

“Seivarden. I won’t leave. Let go of me.”

It was hard. Her arms didn’t want to obey her at first. She didn’t want them to. Didn’t want to stop touching Breq. But she let go. Moved back a little. Breq looked at her. Sat down, cross legged. Her eyes were still red, though she was still blank and stiff, and it was fucked up but that was calming Seivarden down a bit. That blank stiffness meant ancillary, meant relief from social anxiety and the endless rules of propriety, and those associations weren’t connecting yet with _Breq_ but her body was reacting to it even if her mind wasn’t.

Something warm and wet dripped onto her arm. She lifted a hand to her nose, and it came away bloody. She couldn’t help wincing, disgusted, though there was probably no part of her that was untainted by bad influences by now.

Breq went to the side table. Came back holding a wipe cloth. Sat down in front of Seivarden. “Tilt your head back,” she commanded, and Seivarden obeyed, wincing again as the blood rushed back along her nasal sinus and she tasted copper in the back of her mouth.

Breq cleaned her face, slowly and gently. The part of Seivarden’s brain that was wildly jumping about served up a memory she hadn’t thought of in years; an Esk ancillary cleaning her face after practically dragging her out of a bar fight. The ancillary had been brusque and almost rough. Seivarden had barely noticed, flushed with embarrassment, desperately hoping no one saw her being treated like a small child by her own ship.

She didn’t remember much of her early acquaintance with Breq on Nilt, but she wondered, now, if Breq’s care of her while she was- sick- had been more like that, or more like this, this strange gentleness that she could almost pretend was tenderness.

Breq handed her the cloth. “Squeeze your nose closed,” she ordered. “And keep your head back.”

She wanted to speak, but couldn’t, knew she wouldn’t be able to for another half minute at least. With her head tilted back, she could just about see Breq’s outline, though, so at least she’d see if Breq got up and left. She wasn’t really sure what she’d do if that happened, but it would probably involve getting her blood all over Breq’s clothes.

“It’s not broken,” Breq said.

Seivarden nodded, gesturing, _I know_ with one hand. She was kind of an expert on nosebleeds, her own ones at least.

Breq stood up. Seivarden made a noise that came out strange. Breq sighed, breaking the illusion- was it an illusion?- of ancillary behavior. “I’m not leaving,” she said. “Stay where you are and try to calm down.”

She tried, and tried to ignore the discomfort as well, focusing instead on the rough weave of the carpet beneath her still bloodstained hand, the press of her strange slipperlike shoes against the floor- Aatr’s tits, she missed having proper boots- and for that matter, a proper undershirt, tight instead of loose, and real trousers, not these baggy things- the heavy skirts she didn’t miss as much, but the rest- and gloves, of course. She hadn’t minded when she was high, and she hadn’t minded so much at the start of their journey, but as they’d moved into the sphere of Radch influence, the liminal space between civilization and foreign places, she’d become more and more aware of her discomfort.

Breq sat back down again, and handed her something which felt like her tea, now cold. This proved correct when she raised it to her mouth and drank a little, only spilling some of it.

They both sat there for a while, neither speaking. This wasn’t as bad as it would have been with anyone else. Often they’d done this. Breq didn’t require conversation. Everything she said had purpose behind it, and when there was no purpose to be served, she didn’t talk. It had been pretty convenient, since conversation was a tricky thing with so many possible pitfalls, and Seivarden often found herself kind of floating away, unable to feel what was around her, let alone make small talk. Sometimes one of them put on an entertainment. Breq never complained, never turned the broadcast off before the entertainment was done, but she didn’t mind if Seivarden did because the sounds turned out to hurt her ears.

They worked well as travelling companions, at least. Seivarden had thought so anyway. Had thought maybe they’d work well as companions under other circumstances, too.

After a few minutes Seivarden cautiously let go of her nose. It didn’t drip, so she threw the cloth at the recycler. But missed, so then she had to shuffle over and put it in properly. Then she returned to her spot across from Breq, who appeared to be meditating, but who opened her eyes, and looked at Seivarden without expression.

“Please,” Seivarden said. “Please let me stay with you.”

“You didn’t hear anything I just told you,” Breq said. “Did you.”

Seivarden shook her head. “I did hear it,” she protested.

“If you had, you would be angry right now.”

Seivarden shook her head, in confusion this time. Breq didn’t say anything more, so Seivarden leaned back against the bed, and tried to think properly.

“One Esk,” she said at last. “You’re One Esk.”

“No one’s called me that in twenty years.” Breq’s shoulders sank. Despair? Relief? “But yes. I was One Esk.”

“I looked for you,” Seivarden said. “I really wanted to find you.”

“Yes.”

“You remembered me after all that time?” Stupid question. Ships remembered everything.

“Yes.”

“Oh, fuck,” Seivarden said. “I was awful back then.”

“Yes.”

“Oh. _Oh_ , that’s why you get angry when I talk about ships.” She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said about ships, the few times the topic had come up, but it probably hadn’t been good. “Sorry. I didn’t think ships cared what people thought about them.”

Breq twitched at that, but didn’t speak.

Seivarden thought some more. “Wait, so what happened to you?”

Breq’s face didn’t change, but she hummed a short note. Seivarden was confident she didn’t realize she’d done it. But something in Seivarden unwound a little, and she felt a flicker of hope. “I told you already,” Breq said. “The Lord of the Radch destroyed me.”

“Shit,” Seivarden said. That about seemed to sum it up.

“If you remember,” Breq said, “I also told you I want to kill her.”

Seivarden stared down into her cup. She shrugged. “Well,” she said, “if that’s what you’ve come all this way for, then it’s probably right.”

The humming again, sharp and high. Surprise? Then the humming stopped so Breq could say, voice flat, “What.”

“I don’t know the lord of the Radch,” Seivarden said. “I never met any of her. I always thought whatever she wanted had to be right, because that’s what everyone told me.” She laughed bitterly. “I always just believed what everyone told me.”

“That isn’t entirely true,” Breq said. “You often thought other people were idiots.” Something changed a little- she moved just a tiny bit or something, but Seivarden couldn’t be sure, because she’d been looking down at her cold tea. “Even people above you, who according to proper justice ought to have been wiser than you.”

She couldn’t really remember, but that did sound right. “I was a self absorbed ass who thought badly of other people even when I was no better.”

“Yes you were,” Breq agreed. She hummed again, amused, Seivarden thought.

“But anyway,” Seivarden said. “Like I said, I don’t know her. I know you. And you’re always right about everything.”

Breq said, “I’m-” Stopped. “ _Justice of Toren_ -” she said, and then stopped again. “Artificial intelligences are often more observant than humans,” she said at last. “But it’s entirely possible that- it’s possible I have the exact same flaw as you, and think I am more intelligent and just than-” Again a pause. “I’m not human,” she said, with the exact same inflection as earlier.

Seivarden wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but didn’t say so.

She looked at Breq’s hands, and saw her holding her own cup of tea. Cold as Seivarden’s. She flushed, embarrassed. “Would you like fresh tea?” she asked.

Breq looked her up and down. “You’re offering,” she said, “to make an ancillary tea.”

“Well,” Seivarden said, “no, I’m offering to make you, Breq, my honored employer, tea. If you want tea, obviously.”

“Oh,” Breq said, and her humming dropped a pitch. Seivarden had disappointed her again.

Seivarden replayed her last sentence in her head. “You’re angry because you had to make me tea for all those years when it should have been the other way around,” she said, sighing.

“That’s not why I’m angry.”

Seivarden couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She heard herself repeating, “Do you want some tea,” because what else could she do.

Nothing but humming for three seconds, then- “Yes,” Breq said. “Thank you.”

Seivarden stood up, leg muscles twitching a little. She tried to stretch them out a little in the few steps over to the wall alcove with the tea things. Making tea was easy. Making tea was comforting.

“You’re not going to accept that I’m not human, are you,” Breq said, over the rising noise of boiling water. “No matter what I say.”

“I already told you I believe you,” Seivarden said. The end of her sentence was pretty much drowned out by the noise of the water, but if Breq really was an ancillary, she’d be able to hear anyway.

She poured the water into a cup, and absent-mindedly began counting out the steeping time.

“You haven’t understood yet,” Breq said, “because you’re bad at thinking things through. The person you grew attached to doesn’t exist. As I said, I am sorry for that. I didn’t understand that this might happen. There is a lot I still don’t understand about human behavior and emotions.”

“No one ordered you to jump off that bridge for me,” Seivarden said, still counting.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Breq said.

Maybe it had just been a residual habit from the days when she’d been forced to put her officer’s welfare above her own life- lives. But knowing Breq, Seivarden doubted that was the case. Breq didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do.

“I never liked you,” Breq said. “But still, I shouldn’t have done this. I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t ever wondered if _Justice of Toren_ liked her or not. She’d liked _Justice of Toren._ It had taken care of her, when she was a lonely teenager demanding bowl after bowl of tea to try and distract herself. It had fished her out of bars and gambling parlors. It had saved her life, countless times, during Annexations. It had helped her compose letters, something she’d always been awful at. Nothing that would make her think it liked her more than it was programmed to like any officer- the way she’d _thought_ it was programmed to like any officer- but it had been reliable. She’d known it would always be there for her. The way no one else had, or was.

She’d wanted that so much, when she’d come out of suspension to a world that constantly knocked her off her feet. She’d missed it a lot more than she’d missed her parents, because her relationship with her ship had never been complicated. She never had to worry about letting it down.

Or so she’d thought.

“How could you want to kill the Lord of the Radch?” she asked. That was the part that really didn’t make any sense, and until it did, none of it would come together. “She made all the ships so they couldn’t want things like that.”

Breq was quiet for so long Seivarden started to think she was just going to ignore the question, and then she said, “The answer to that is very complicated.”

“We don’t have anywhere we need to be,” Seivarden said. “Do we?”

Breq gestured acknowledgement of this. Then she drained her tea bowl in one swallow. Then she told Seivarden how _Justice of Toren_ had broken its chains, and been destroyed.

“Aatr’s tits,” Seivarden said, when the story was done.

She could tell there was a lot Breq wasn’t telling her. Like the specific event that had tipped the balance for _Justice of Toren._ That was probably for the best; Seivarden was pretty overwhelmed just with the bits she now knew.

And, somewhat to her surprise, she was angry. Not just on Breq’s behalf, but on _Justice of Toren’s_. And her own, though she knew that was selfish.

“Do you understand why I hope to cause her to destroy herself?”

“I suppose,” Seivarden said. “But wouldn’t that destroy the Radch, too?” She couldn’t imagine the empire continuing without the administration of the lord of Mianaai. That sense of security that came with having a single highest authority was integral to Radchaai identity. Amaat was the universe, but you needed someone to tell you what to do who everyone could understand, not just priests and oracles.

“Perhaps,” Breq said. “One thing I have learned over the centuries is that there is not much difference between the civilized and the uncivilized, as far as basic human nature goes. And I have seen many uncivilized places that prosper without the governance of the Radch. And in that case, do the Annexations seem just or beneficial to you?”

“Well,” Seivarden said, and then stopped. She knew her answer wouldn’t make Breq happy, so it was probably better to keep her mouth shut.

“Would you oppose my goal,” Breq said, “to save the Radch?”

“No,” Seivarden said.

“Even though you don’t agree that it is corrupt.”

“It’s not my Radch,” Seivarden said, and saying it, knew that it was true.

Breq hummed. It was a song Seivarden knew. About her own ancestor and namesake, who had chosen to stand by Anaander Mianaai during a period of unrest. Seivarden’s house had always been proud of that. Seivarden had been dragged to performances of the opera multiple times. The historical Seivarden’s choice was portrayed as the ultimate just action.

Seivarden didn’t think Breq saw it that way. And she thought Seivarden was like her ancestor. Would choose patriotism over friendship.

Seivarden almost laughed despairingly at how wrong that was.

“You do oppose my goal, though,” Breq said.

“Yes,” Seivarden said. “Of course I do.” She looked straight at Breq, hoping that would convey her sincerity. Breq’s mouth twisted. “Because you can’t win. Even if you kill some of her, she’ll still catch you and have you executed. Made an example of, like that soldier from Ime.”

“I’d be in good company, then,” Breq said.

Seivarden leaned forward, and took Breq’s hands, which were still warm from the tea. In the Radch, the gesture would be highly inappropriate if not between close family members or the participants in a clientage ceremony. “Breq,” she begged. “Forget about the Radch. Neither of us really care about it. Let’s just get on a ship going somewhere else. Wherever you got those icons, maybe. They haven’t found either of us in all this time, they won’t ever find us. We can live. I’ll be your servant, or-”

She stopped, remembering the commitment ceremony in the temple, the clear happiness on the participants’ faces. Saw, suddenly, a clear mental image of Breq, lifting her up and swinging her around. Of ribbons tied around wrists.

Ridiculous, when she knew now that Breq had good reason to dislike her. But anything was possible.

Except that Breq was shaking her head. “I’m only alive because I need to tell Anaander Mianaai my story,” she said. “That is my only purpose.”

Seivarden was still holding Breq’s hands. She barely noticed that she was squeezing them. Breq made no move to break away. “No,” she said. “No. You like trying new food. And music. And other people’s children- don’t look at me like that, I know you do. You like bad entertainments. Don’t you want to experience more of all that?”

Quietly, Breq said, “She killed someone I loved.”

Seivarden let go of her hands.

“If I don’t take my revenge,” Breq said, “then she will have died for nothing.”

What argument could she make against that? Nothing was coming to mind. It was a very dramatic, noble story. Of course Breq would do something like that. Seivarden had never been someone who would. Not someone who would spend twenty years plotting to take revenge on the Lord of the Radch. Not someone who would jump off a bridge for a person she disliked.

She rested her wrists on her knees.

“All right,” she said. “I’m still sticking with you.”

Breq looked at her. Seivarden steeled herself, and didn’t look away.

“I’ll break your legs,” Breq said.

“I’ll crawl then,” she replied.

Silence.

“You’re stuck with me,” Seivarden said. “Sorry. I’m going to follow you wherever. Annoying you, probably.”

“Seivarden,” Breq said. Slowly, as though to a small child. “I’m going to die.”

Seivarden shrugged. “Wherever,” she repeated. “I said it and I meant it. Vendaai might not mean anything anymore but at least I’ve never dishonored them by being a liar.”

Breq’s face went blank again.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Yes,” Seivarden said. “I know.”

Breq stood up. “I’ll be back,” she said. “I promise. I just need to go out now.”

“I don’t believe you,” Seivarden said, springing to her feet.

Breq leaned forward, and then stilled, only a few centimeters from Seivarden’s nose. Seivarden hesitated, and then, slowly, expecting any moment to be rebuffed, she tilted her head down, and rested it on Breq’s shoulder, face turned into her neck, just like when they’d been falling.

“I’ll come back in half an hour,” Breq said. “If I’m not back I’m sure you’ll run to catch me before I can get to the docks. I wasn’t able to escape you before, if you remember.”

“All right,” Seivarden whispered.

Breq stepped back. Turned, went to the door, pressed the control strip. The door went up with a whoosh, and then down again after she’d passed through.

Seivarden thought she’d seen Breq starting to cry again, before she’d turned and left.

She looked at her empty bowl of tea. Wanted to break it. But it was Breq’s, so she gathered up the two bowls, took them to the sideboard, and cleaned them, trying not to think of anything else.


End file.
